


The Routine

by screwedupheads



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:23:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screwedupheads/pseuds/screwedupheads
Summary: elliot alderson gave up on achieving true happiness as soon as his father breathed his last breath.





	The Routine

**Author's Note:**

> hey! i’ve recently gotten into mr. robot, and i really wanted to write something so i whipped together this little drabble about elliot and leon. it skips over a lot of important details and that’s because i’m still getting used to writing these characters. hope you enjoy! (lowercase intended because i wrote this on my phone and i’m lazy)

elliot alderson gave up on achieving true happiness as soon as his father breathed his last breath, and his sister turned away from him with shaking shoulders, and his mother’s disappointed eyes burned into the back of his head as he let his own tears fall. 

from then on he was stuck. stuck with circular burns freckling his arms, stuck with seeing the bruises cover darlene, stuck with his own guilt and sadness. sadness turned into nothing at some point. some would call that depression. elliot called it relief. such a relief to feel nothing at all. when he was younger, he could easily numb the tears that pricked his eyes when his mother screamed by learning computers inside and out. when he was older, it was the morphine. an artificial nothing.

a cycle began, elliot liked cycles: lose time, lose sleep, hack, feel the loneliness set in, use morphine to counteract that, avoid the missed calls from angela.  
but suddenly there was fsociety, and shayla became more only to leave as quick as she came, and darlene wasn’t how he remembered her, and mr. robot plagued his head like a parasite. he itched for his routine again. the change broke the nothingness he was used to. 

he got his routine when the police came knocking on his door, as if that was the plan the whole time.  
at least, prison should have been a routine, and it was, but something shifted. 

leon. 

it was leon. because leon was the sun peaking through the clouds. 

elliot couldn’t feel nothing anymore, he was almost...happy to be around leon. it was as if for the first time, someone spoke to him without an obligation to do so. so unlike the condescending stares from angela and the forced visits from both darlene and his therapist. because leon just...spoke. he expected nothing from elliot other than for him to be sitting there in front of him. 

the routine became more than just struggling to live day to day. it was waking up and looking forward to seeing him every day.

leon.  
the name had butterflies spinning circles in his stomach and flowers sprouting in his brain. 

one of the days darlene visited, she stared him down for a minute before a small smile slipped onto her face.

“you seem happier,” she had said, leaning back in her chair. elliot had never realized that she could read him so well.

“i guess i am” elliot had replied softly. 

he wondered if leon could see the change in him. he wondered if leon enjoyed his company as much as elliot enjoyed his.  
elliot became more responsive in what used to be leon’s ramblings, soon they turned into full conversations. 

elliot never saw the smile that grew on leon’s face when elliot spoke. he never saw the way leon stared at him back. he never saw the love in leon’s eyes when elliot laughed in front of him for the first time. he never saw the anger in leon when other prisoners threatened him. he never saw the way leon cared for him.

all elliot knew was that leon was there, and they had each other, no bad intentions, no fsociety, no mr. robot. just them.

and for the first time in a long, long time, elliot was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m not sure when i’ll get around to adding a second part, or if i even will, but i’m sure you have an idea where i’m doing with this.


End file.
